If you use social media, i.e. Twitter, Facebook, Google +, LinkedIn, you automatically have a Klout score. If you are in any way involved in the business of music be it as an artist, manager, promoter, on-air personality, publicist, etc. and you use social media for something other than taking shots at your baby mama, you may want to occasionally review your Klout score and develop a strategy for using the influence it indicates you have to advance your professional goals.
Klout is built around a simple principle; that everyone has influence, and that influence can be measured, analyzed, and used in productive ways to impact various audiences. Your Klout Score is measured based on your ability to engage others on social networks. This is an important and useful tool in the entertainment industry because there has been a sea change in distribution channels. Nowadays, entertainment professionals have as much control over who is aware of their offerings as do the old guard of industry insiders. The only question is; do they have as much knowledge about how to use their influence to get notice, sell music, draw crowds, and build their own brands?
We looked at the Klout scores of a number of DC area artists and the good news is that a high percentage of them have scores well above the average Klout score of 40 on a scale of 1 to 100. It should be no surprise that the region’s leader is none other than Raheem DeVaughn whose score is a stratospheric 85. This doesn’t mean the number is based solely on popularity, though popularity is a factor in compiling the score. The data, or “signals” used to calculate the Klout score are derived from a combination of attributes, such as the reactions you generate compared to the amount of content you share, how selective the people who interact with you on social media are, and how much engagement you drive from unique individuals. So, if you generate 100 retweets from 10 tweets, your score is higher than it would be from generating 100 retweets from 1000 tweets. Likewise, if 100 different people retweet your content, it gains a higher measure than you’d get from a single person retweeting you 100 times. Folks who rely on Twitter to get entertainment related messages out should pay careful attention to this.
Carolyn Malachi has a Klout score of 70. We didn’t do any deep analysis of what social media platforms she is using, but her score indicates that a proportionate share of her 20,000 Twitter followers respond positively to her Tweets by viewing and sharing her content. Wordsmith and Kenny Wesley have scores of 59 and Ishan Bilal has a Klout score of 51. This matters because once an artist is armed with information about their social media influence they have a starting point for drilling down to understand who they are influencing, why, and what works and what is ineffective or even harmful.
Here are some other Klout scores, again comfortably above the average: Black Alley 49, Ras Nebyu 48, King Shug 48, and the group Violet Says 5 has a score of 47. How do they move from very good on the scale of influence to excellent? Well, you can’t game your Klout score, but you can make subtle changes to your social media content that will bring more engagement and sharing. For example, Carolyn Malachi has a great intellect and an extremely broad range of interests so her tweets from day to day won’t be 1) all about Carolyn!, or 2) a slight variation on the same theme. She is as likely to share a link to another artist’s work as she is to her own, and she is cause-driven, meaning she supports the worthy work and interests of others.
That’s the formula. You can’t build and effectively use influence on social media if you consistently come across as self-centered. If you actually spend even a small amount of time reading the tweets of folks you follow you can quickly discern their interests and the interests possibly, of the people who follow them. So, you may be interesting to them, but don’t forget; you’re not the only reason they’re on Twitter. When you know that ten percent of your followers like your music, but are passionate about “Save the Music”, it’s a good thing to post links to information about that subject. What would not be good, if you’re a male artist and sixty percent of your followers are female, is to hammer away on your little misogynistic drum every morning and every other night when you use social media. That’s a pretty ineffective strategy for growing your influence.
So we recommend that you check out Klout and sign up for it if you believe it will be helpful. Don’t overestimate the worth of your score, and don’t be consumed with checking it. But do use it as a way of understanding what you are doing right as an entertainment professional, and how you can make changes to aid your career.